The men’s track and field team opened up its season Sunday afternoon by hosting Indiana State at Lantz Arena. While the Panthers did not dominate the Sycamores, the Eastern team felt it has improved significantly since the beginning of last season.

On paper it looked like the Panthers had trouble with Indiana State since the Sycamores held a higher finish in 11 of the 15 track events. The underlying purpose of the opening meet for Eastern was just to see how the team stood early on this season.

The meet focused on individual times since the teams did not keep points against each other. Because of this, the Panthers and their coaching staff were just looking to see how well they could compete against a solid team in their first official competition of their season.

“I thought we definitely had a good showing today,” said head coach Tom Akers. “In an event-by-event basis we showed that this team is better than they were at the end of last year.”

The Panthers look to seniors such as Kyle O’Brien. who also runs cross country for Eastern, to provide leadership for the upcoming season. O’Brien answered the call today by posting the best finish in the men’s 3000-meter run.

One surprise for Eastern in this meet was freshmen Casey Becker, who competed well against Indiana State. He took first place in the high jump and was also a member of the 4×400 meter relay in which the Panthers finished second.

“O’Brien always seems to be a machine for us, but there were other players who played very well today,” Akers said. “Guys like Jackson Johnson, who was red-shirted last year, and Jason Stark completed well for us and are multi-talented athletes.”